Wheels Part 1

Well, here we are back in the garage again. Actually I have been in there quite a lot of late, having temporarily diverted from TR7 restoration to bike building. I had always hankered after a trail bike and saw one for sale outside a house. I bought it, then spent the next three months fixing it - head, carbs, piston, cylinder, you name it. Sorry to bring bikes into the story but I mention it because doing that engine work was a sort of rehearsal for fixing the TR7's. I enjoyed all the stripping down, removing and refitting parts, timing it up and so on. I hope I enjoy the 7's as much when the time comes.

Anyway, on to Bessy the TR7. Well, since my last post the rear suspension has been refitted and now she sits ready to come down to earth for the first time in years. However, before I can do that the wheels need sorting so that I can pop on new tyres and have a rolling shell ready for paint. So, here's a picture of the sub frame:

Look beyond it and you will see a stack of four very scruffy wheels and tyres, which have now been sandblasted (the wheels, not the tyres, obviously) and given two coats of Kurust which makes everything go black.

Once dry, they are given a coat of etch primer, and finished in Halfords steel wheel paint. I haven't quite finished this job yet.

A pivotal moment

At last! After about four years in the air, rotating away on a spit, the car has moved. Ok, it has only gone downwards as she came off the spit, but it is movement nonetheless. So, RJW 307R is a little closer to the road, in every sense.

The front suspension is all fitted up and I have loosely fitted the steering wheel, so the old girl can be steered into the paint shop. The steering wheel and brackets etc will be removed for painting - this is just for transportation. Next stop is fitting the rear axle.

Exciting, eh?

Seats

Do you like my seats? I hope so, because I am really proud of them. These had been banished to the darkest, filthiest corner of my shed about twenty years ago and had sat there, undisturbed, until I found them under a mound of inlet manifolds. To say they were disgusting is an understatement.

I am bouncing around a bit in this restoration, but you know what it is like - boredom with one job sets in so you tackle another. And so it was with my seats.

The one on the right is as it was when dragged out of the shed. On the left we have a restored one.

The first job was to strip them down, which I enjoyed very much. All those little clips and springs were put away for reassembly, and the covers removed and put through the washing machine a few times. They came up a treat. The covers had some fag burns in them, but at this stage I didn't want to fit new ones. As I have said before, I get a little thrill out of putting original bits back on the car. So, ever the innovator, I bought an old door card and used the tartan from that to invisibly patch them from behind. That worked a treat.

The foams were in a pretty awful state, but salvageable so I bought some foam from a seller on ebay and patched them back together using spray glue.

Next it was time for the frames, which were broken around where the backrest meets the base.

This is common, apparently, and I briefly considered ordering new ones before welding them back up. I chuckled at the "this seat is approved..." safety notice stuck to the frame, right where one of the retaining brackets had snapped off. I hope the welds hold.

One of the most fun parts was re-padding the headrests. Having peeled off the covers I was left with a pile of dust, literally. With replacements costing about £30 a side I decided to have a go at making my own, using foam and spray glue. They worked a treat, and with a little help (i.e. putting the cover in the microwave for 20 seconds - I'm not married) they were looking great again.

Dust

Making new side pieces

New foams

Reassembly was pretty straightforward, with a little jiggling about (the covers and foams, not me). The old webbing and clips were reused and fitted back on the painted frames.

The vinyl panels on the seats were cleaned up and black shoe shine (the type in a bottle) used to get them looking great again. The result? A pair of very presentable seats.

Rear Suspension

You may remember that the rear suspension was just a heavy lump of dusty, rusty scrap clogging up my garage space. However it was time to get it up to scratch, so the first job was to clean and strip it.

Once disassembled I was left with a box of bits which I would have no idea about reassembling. The differential was sent to Ace Gearboxes in Northampton for rebuilding, only for me to be told that it was beyond repair. This didn't surprise me too much as it whined like nobody's business when it was on the car, so I ordered a recon exchange unit from Rimmer Bros which was duly fitted into the repainted axle casing.

The lower link and radius arms were past their best, so were taken to be blasted and powder coated in satin black. Once back I had new bushes pressed in by classic-friendly local garage Blason's in Brixworth.

This was getting expensive now, but the costs continued to rise with the acquisition of new back plates, half shaft bearings, all the bits & bobs like gaskets and seals and of course springs, rubbers and dampers.

The brakes had ended up in a box and today my mate Neil came round to help me put everything back together. After a lot of fiddling (particularly with the various levers, adjusters and springs) it all went rather well. Needless to say they had new everything, including shoes and cylinders.

 Finally everything went back together, along with the addition of a new hand brake cable.

Misc

I have been working on the TR7, honestly. I have quite a few projects on the go concurrently, so when I get a chance I'll write individual posts for them. In a nutshell I have been working on:
 - Seats
 - Axle & diff
 - The underside
 - Sub-frame
 - Heater

Here are some pics:

Various bits, ready to have the bushes removed. They'll then be shot-blasted and painted.

The axle after a good clean up. Next step is to coat it in Kurust and paint it black.

 

A good coat of Schutz applied

Can you guess which one I have thoroughly refurbished?

Finished it!

It's a, er, heater

Steering Rack, Subframe and Heater

Happy New Year, folks. Cold, isn't it? And rainy, too.

This post is a bit of a mish-mash of things, as I appear to have gotten my photo-taking a little out of sync. First off, a quick look at the subframe now that it has been reassembled. The steering rack came up nicely and after fitting new gaiters was loosely bolted back on the frame.

I have treated the subframe to new, er, everything really. Bushes, washers, nuts, washers - you name it.
 

From this...

...to this.

The anti-roll bar finally got its new bits, too, although I couldn't get the end caps (either end of the bushes) anywhere so cleaned and painted the old ones. The parts catalogues show two clamps either side of the central mounting bushes, but my car didn't have those when I stripped everything down. I wonder if that was just shoddy Speke workmanship, a later omission after a repair or perhaps the early cars didn't have them? Who knows, but I ordered some anyway as I guess they do something related to safety. Currently everything is just thrown on the anti-roll bar for storage, and will be positioned properly when the suspension goes back together.

So, apart from the lower links, that's the front suspension done and ready for when they'll be refitted. Scratching my head for something else to do, I then moved onto the heater box.

After connecting some power to it, it ran! It is always nice to experience something electrical coming back to life after so long in storage. This can't have run for at least 20 years, so I was dead chuffed. The whole thing was looking very dirty, so it was given a good clean and inspected.

The two pipes into the heater matrix were looking pretty corroded and one of them was crimped over where the flexi should fit, so these will need to be replaced. I don't think they are available as a stand-alone part, so I will have to try to get some made or find a scrap box with good pipes. Commendably, Robsport do a set in stainless steel but at £80 they are just too expensive for me.

Next job was to remove and inspect the heater matrix, as I don't want to put the car back together only to find it leaks. So, out it came after removing the little clips around the heater assembly, splitting it into two halves and drilling out four pop rivets. I really have no idea how to test the matrix, but blowing a load of compressed air through it cleared out much muck and brown water, after which I refilled it a few times and swilled it out. Filling it back up showed no leaks whatsoever, but I concede that a pressure test might be in order.

The rubber gaskets/bushes which seal the pipes will need replacing, but they are very scarce (and expensive in the UK if you can find them). Having seen a pair on ebay for circa £50, I did a quick internet trawl and within a week took delivery of two original, new ones in BL packaging. They came from The Netherlands and cost 30 euros including postage. Result!